In today's IT infrastructure, high availability is of paramount importance. Specifically, critical (and sometimes non-critical) components within an IT infrastructure are often layered in redundancy. For example, primary servers may be supported by backup servers; primary switches may be supported by backup switches; primary power supplies may be supported by backup power supplies; and primary storage systems may be supported by backup storage systems.
When designing such high availability devices, flexibility concerning the manner in which these devices are electrically coupled is highly important. Further, since enclosure space within these devices is at a premium, the ability to provide adequate cooling and ventilation is often complicated by other design criteria.